campus politics

You might not expect the mayor of Berkeley to show up for a meeting in dad jeans and running shoes. Or to be just 33 years old and living in a rented apartment with two roommates. Or to engage a reporter in a freewheeling discussion on some of the most controversial topics of the day without an aide or PR flack in attendance. But then again, Berkeley wasn’t expecting Jesse Arreguín ’07, who swept into office in 2016 in an upset victory over Councilman Laurie Capitelli, who had been endorsed by former Mayor Tom Bates.

In my first months as chancellor, I’ve been thinking a lot about journeys. I remember vividly the first one I made to California to take up my faculty position here. I was a young, freshly minted Ph.D.; I drove across the country with a friend, and it was the first time I had been west of the Mississippi. Indeed, it was the first time I had been west of Philadelphia.

CALIFORNIA Classic

Exactly one year ago, famed scientist and cultural icon, Stephen Hawking died in his Cambridge home at age 76. Remembered for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he shares his date of death with Pi Day––an annual celebration of the beloved mathematical constant and, of course, pie. And what better way to celebrate than with some wisdom from the great physicist himself? As Hawking told his audience during one of many well-attended guest lectures at UC Berkeley,

“Although science may solve the problem of how the Universe began, it can not answer the question: Why does the Universe bother to exist?”